Garage Band

So you want to start a band?

No money? Instruments held together with spit and duct tape? But you're gonna make it big someday, right? You'll need someplace to practice before you play the big stage. If you're from Suburbia do I have news for you! You have the ultimate practice space right in your own home!

The garage!

Yes, that dinky space where your dad keeps the Christmas decorations on the off season and keeps swearing that one day he'll clean it out so he can actually park his car in there. Co-opt that space now! Kick some stuff out of the way and drop your instruments where you can find space and wail away. You'll be playing concerts in no time, just open the garage door and the neighbors can get in on the action.

This trope is often played in fiction as a ragtag group of teenagers, for bonus points it may be a group of Emo Teens, forming a band. Sometimes the band is a spur of the moment thing, started as a weekend project or to win a talent show and becomes the plot of the episode. Often the band will break up at the end of the episode. In Real Life successful bands have started out as Garage Bands, with Nirvana being one such example. Hell, there's even a genre of music called Garage Rock. Not (quite) related to the Apple program of the same name.

Fan Works

Found frequently in Undocumented Features, contributing to its internal "I'm With The Band" trope:
- Belldandy and Keiichi? College garage band.
- Princess Amanda of Gamilon? Private band with her brother and their bodyguards.
- Most of the early parts of Symphony of the Sword revolve in part around Kaitlyn Hutchins' band The Art of Noise (named for the 20th century British techno band the same way singer Englebert Humperdinck took the name of an 18th century composer). They eventually graduate from a garage band to a major act in the galaxy at large.
- After her revival and introduction to the "Big Universe" beyond Dìqiú (and a subsequent improvement in her sanity), Azula spent at least some of her teenage years as the drummer in a girl-garage band called "Discarded Weapons" with Laura Kinney (who plays bass guitar).

Film

Marty McFly's band in Back to The Future, which auditions for the school dance.

Audition Judge: Hold it, fellas. I'm afraid you're just too darn loud.

- That judge? Huey Lewis in a cameo.
Bill and Ted has Wyld Stallyns.
The Australian movie Garage Days is about a band like this.
In Freaky Friday, Anna's band practices down in the garage and don't get a real break until the Wango Tango auditions.
Scott Pilgrim's band Sex Bob-omb

Literature

In Soul Music, there's Insanity/The Whom/The Surruptitious Fabric/The Blots/And Supporting Bands. Due to an absence of cars (and hence of garages), they rehearse in Crash's dad's stables.

Live-Action TV

In Rita Rocks, Rita, a harried but Happily Married mother finds a creative outlet in a garage band with her neighbor, her best friend, and her daughter's boyfriend.
The Partridge Family started out this way in their show.
Matt from Lizzie McGuire started a garage band once for a subplot.
Degrassi has had at least one active garage band among the main characters in every version of the franchise since 1987.
George Lopez has an episode where George's son Max joins such a band as he is learning to play guitar.

Music

Lindsey Stirling got her start in a high school band called "Stomp on Melvin".

Newspaper Comics

Jeremy has one in Zits.
Chip Flagston has a band with two of his friends in Hi and Lois.
Billy and the Boingers (originally called "Deathtöngue") in Bloom County.

Radio

Ed Grundy's band Dross in The Archers.

Web Comics

Deathmøle in Questionable Content.

Western Animation

South Park: the Lords of the Underworld. They only become popular when they become Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld.
- There's also Moop. In the same episode, Faith+1 starts out this way before getting popular.
Jimmy Neutron has an episode where Jimmy & Co. try to start a band for a talent show.
Family Guy has Chris starting a metal garage band in one episode.
- In another episode, Peter and his buddies form a rock band, but things don't go so well at their first gig when they find out they don't know any songs.
In Gumby Adventures, Gumby and his friends have a rock band of their own. They practice in their barn.
American Dad has Steve and his friends starting a band in one episode, as shown in this page's image.
The titular characters of Beavis and Butthead started a garage band in one episode, despite only knowing how to play air guitar. They named their band "Metallica" and caused a huge riot when they didn't show up to a gig, where hundreds of people awaited the band of the same name.
Duane's garage band SCÄB (note the Heavy Metal Umlaut) in Home Movies. They even do a rock opera based on Franz Kafka.
- Brendon and his pals start a band in Guitarmageddon, but they put more energy into coming up with band names than on their music.
Darkwing Duck: In the episode "A Revolution in Home Appliances," Gosalyn, Honker, and Tank start a garage band of sorts.
The Bremen Avenue Experience takes the animal characters from the Fairy Tale "The Bremen Town Musicians" and re-imagines them as a modern day Funny Animal Garage Band.
Doug had an episode about this, apropriatly titled, "Doug's Garage Band".
Kick Buttowski had the episode "Garage Banned" where Brad and his gang practised to win the Battle of the Bands, leaving Kick and Gunther to practise elsewhere.